Buying BI

Why Developers Love Logi Analytics: Comparing Build vs. Buy

By Josh Martin | August 17, 2017

I’m not a developer, but I work ­with dozens of developers on a regular basis. At Logi we spend a lot of time thinking about how developers work, what they care about, and the tools they use to do their jobs.

So when it comes to the interminable “build versus buy” debate, we set out to eliminate the Faustian bargain these binary options require. Instead, by spending years focusing our product on application developers, we have created the only developer-grade analytics platform available—a hybrid solution that developers love because it melds the creative flexibility of building with the convenience of buying.

Logi’s philosophy is simple:

Empower your creativity

Be open and extensible

Eliminate concerns about scalability

Support you when you need it

How do support these philosophies? By weighing whether “build” or “buy” is the best solution for each philosophy and coming up with our own unique combined approach to tackle the important issues.

Empower Creativity

Bolt-on analytics solutions—those designed as standalone tools but which also permit you to embed—allow you to deploy quickly, but at the cost of creativity. Often you’re integrating someone else’s experience into your application. There isn’t much opportunity to leverage your skills to create and intertwine a unique user experience with your host application to keep users in your product.

This is why so many developers opt to build analytics solutions themselves, which allows them to have complete creative control. But the cost of building is time spent researching, integrating, and maintaining components (including open-source analytics and free data visualization tools) instead of focusing on core application development.

New Winner: Logi’s Hybrid Approach

Provide total control over the look and feel of every element, layout, and self-service

Provide advanced capabilities such as kicking off a workflow or writing back to the database, which allows developers to create engrossing capabilities that make applications more powerful

Empower end users with tailored self-service to reduce ad-hoc requests and free up developers for core product development

Be Open and Extensible

Our Philosophy: Developers want to get under the hood and tinker

Old Winner: Build

You might have code you’ve grown fond of. Or perhaps there is a fantastic charting library you love. You shouldn’t have to forego those things just because you’re bolting on a solution to replace your existing analytics. Many developers we talk to opt to use components because the wide range of available solutions support the capabilities they love. But with Logi, if our software can’t do something you want, we offer APIs and other facilities to integrate custom third-party elements.

New Winner: Logi’s Hybrid Approach

Make the application easy to extend, thus allowing you to incorporate existing code and workflows into your analytics

Eliminate dead-ends for developers

Ensure it adheres to standards

Eliminate Scalability Concerns

Our Philosophy: Developers don’t want deployment to be a constraint

Old Winner: Buy

Developers tell us they don’t want to worry about whether their solution will scale. Is anything more frustrating than completing a build, staging your deployment, and discovering the components you relied on don’t scale in the way you were expecting?

Despite the fact that many build solutions require heavy hardware footprints, the good news is they provide the technical specifications that allow developers to understand what they need upfront. They don’t require developers figure everything out on their own based on the various requirements of all the components they integrated into their app.

Provide Support When You Need It

Philosophy: Developers should have access to extensive, accurate resources whenever they need them

Old Winner: Buy

The open-source analytics and component market features a rich and vibrant community which provides excellent advice and assistance. We love this idea, but recognize that reliance on the community can sometimes create support challenges. Most buy solutions offer dedicated support portals and some assign personnel to your account. At Logi, we have created an environment of experts and documentation that are always ready and able to help with your specific issue.

New Winner: Logi’s Hybrid Approach

Provide thorough documentation on each and every release and service pack

Enable dedicated support so technical folks are familiar with your particular needs

Create multiple channels to reach help when needed

If you’re interested in learning how you can eliminate the hassle of researching, updating, and testing dashboard components while maintaining the creative flexibility you crave, why not check out our demo and see if Logi is a good fit for you?

About the Author

Josh Martin is the Director of Product Marketing at Logi Analytics. Prior to joining Logi he was an industry analyst covering bleeding edge distribution channels and their impact on the consumer market. In this role he was a thought leader and advised clients on how to successfully benefit from market shifts while positioning products and services for long-term success. Josh holds a Bachelor degree in Business from Babson College.